This invention pertains generally to a method for producing high pressures that requires no moving mechanical parts and particularly to the use of electro-osmotic flow to produce a high pressure system for compressing and manipulating fluids in packed microchannels, in general, and capillaries, in particular.
The phenomenon of electro-osmosis, in which the application of an electric potential to an electrolyte in contact with a dielectric surface produces a net force on a fluid and thus a net flow of fluid, has been known since Reuss in 1809. The physics and mathematics defining it and its associated phenomenon streaming potential, both part of a larger class of electrochemical phenomena, namely electrokinetic effects, have been extensively explored, Introduction to Electrochemistry, S. Glasstone, 1942, pp. 521-529 and R. P. Rastogi, "Irreversible Thermodynamics of Electro-osmotic Flow", J. Sci. and Industrial Res., 28, 284, 1969. In like manner, electrophoresis, the movement of charged particles through a stationary medium under the influence of an electric field, has been extensively studied and employed in the separation and purification arts.
The use of electro-osmotic flow has been wide spread and has found wide ranging applications in chemical analysis. The use of electro-osmostic flow for fluid transport in packed bed capillary chromatography was first documented by Pretorius, et. al., "Electro-osmosis--A New Concept for High-Speed Liquid Chromatography", J. Chromatography, 9, 23-30, 1974. Although the possibility of using this phenomenon was recognized two decades ago, the effective use of this method has only recently been demonstrated and has just begun (within the last year) to provide commercial utility.
As set forth hereinabove, although electro-osmosis has been used extensively to move or pump fluids, except for measurements of the streaming potential, there appears to be no recognition that this same phenomenon can be used to generate large pressures, or resistive forces, (in excess of 2500 psi) which can be used to compress or pump fluids and manipulate fluid flow generally in capillary-based systems.